Last Wednesday Governor Deval Patrick announced Massachusett’s backing of the MassChallenge Venture Funds Competition. According to Mass High Tech this competition aims to supply seed-stage businesses with funding that due to the economy and past Wall Street problems are no longer readily available to start ups.

The MassChallenge Venture Funds Competition is run by John Harthorne, Akhil Nigam and David Constantine.  Mr. Hawthorne and Mr. Nigam are products of Cambridge educations at MIT and Harvard.  Mr. Hawthorne lives in Somerville and Mr. Nigam lives in Cambridge.  Besides running the competition they will be raising funds for the prizes that to some degree will be matched by the state of Massachusetts.  Massachusetts hopes to fuel local business growth since the requirements are as follows:

The goal of the Venture Funds Competition is to launch new, innovative businesses in Massachusetts. As part of the competition rules, winners must establish their startup headquarters in Massachusetts and create a minimum of five jobs in the state. Additionally, one outside investor must agree to match state investment funds.

Governor Patrick was the speaker earlier this month at the MIT graduation.  I have included a video taken by NECN of a portion of his speech that focuses on Massachusetts innovation.  Patrick made the announcement at the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center in Cambridge.  Cambridge has always been the heart of innovation in Massachusetts but the challenge has always been to keep the companies in Cambridge never mind Massachusetts.  As much as the State’s involvement in these types of initiatives help we need to figure out how to keep businesses that are born in Cambridge and Massachusetts here.

Here is the speech.  I love graduation speeches they inspire me.  I truly believe that as tough as conditions are historically that has been when great ideas and companies are born…

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